jazzfish | i said to leonard cohen, how lonely does it get

It's no exaggeration to say that I never expected to see forty.

In elementary school I remember reading an article in, o, probably 3-2-1-Contact, that opened with "What will life be like in the year 2000?" That seemed unimaginably far-off at the time. I counted it out and realised that I'd be twenty-three-turning-twenty-four that year, which didn't make it any closer.

Birthdays mostly don't register for me. Having a birthday right around Yanksgiving means there hasn't been much point in trying to celebrate since elementary school: people are always off partying with their families. Some friends threw a surprise party for me on my eighteenth, and at least once when I lived in McLean

uilos got a bunch of people to call and wish me happy birthday, both of which were pretty cool.

In general, though, milestones don't signify. I'm the same on both sides. I turned eighteen and was still stuck in the same house for another year, I turned thirty and that didn't make "29" any less relevant.

There was no particular reason I should have made it as far as forty. No reason not to, most of the time, just ... no overriding need to have drifted that far downstream. And yet.

A man's still got his strength at forty. He knows most of what he's going to learn, and he's got the strength to put it to good use.
--Terry Brooks, "Magic Kingdom For Sale -- Sold!"

I first read Magic Kingdom sometime in late elementary school. It felt thin, even at that age, but it was a lot of fun watching Ben Holliday traipse around his new kingdom, trying to be the best king he could be. Too, I was amused that I had a pretty good idea of where the portal to Landover was located, a couple hours' drive from my previous house.

And Meeks's quote above stuck with me, for no reason that I can possibly explain.

I'm not even sure I believe it, either. I certainly hope I don't know most of what I'm going to learn. Far too many things I don't know yet, in both the "neat facts" and "handling situations" senses. As for strength ... my hearing has been getting worse (that or I'm spending more time around quieter people) and my sight, well, that's been getting worse all my life, no shock there. Will see how things go when I get moved and can start running again.

At least I don't have the bourgeois concern of whether there's fun after forty. I think that's pretty well taken care of, between pancakes and (I hope) cinnamon creme pie and

uilos and Erin.

Happy day, y'all.